Thursday 2 October 2014

CRM 2013 - Quick Guide to Business Rules


What is it
A new feature in CRM 2013 called Business Rules or Portable Logic

http://www.dynamics101.com/2014/07/understanding-business-rules-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2013/

What can it do

Business rules allows you to write logic on CRM forms without writing Javascript.  It can hide fields, calculations, display error messages. 

Business can

Hide/show fields
Make a field businsess required
calculate a fields value based on values in other fields
validate a field, showing an error message if an invalid value is input
disable a field


Why do you need to know it

It's a way to do form validation and form manipulation that previously only people with Javascript knowledge could do, now end users and CRM consultants can do form manipulation.

Business rules also run on the Tablet and mobile apps

Why is it important

It allows non developers to add validation and functionality (hide/show/disable fields) to a CRM form.

Business rules will also work on the tablet application, hence why business rules are also known as portable business logic

Why's it good for customers

Reduces the dependancy on developers to add form validation, field calculations and hiding/showing/disabling fields.  This will allow customers to create business rules


Why's it good developers/consultants

Consultants can add functionality which was only available using Javascript in CRM 2011. 

Limitations/Gotcha's

one down side is it's another place validation can run, which means you can have conflicting validation from Javascript and business rules.

Business rules have to be created in pairs, e.g. one rule to hide a field and another rule to show the field.  Most first time users of business rules forget to add the second rule.

Business rules and Javascript can conflict.  Business rules are triggered before Javascript

Business rules and Javascript means there are two different areas to check, which can create some unexpected behaviour

Will it change in the future

Yes, its going to get even better with IF/Else conditional statements in CRM 2015.  

CRM 2015 will also add improved calculations and rollup fields

Where Can I find out more


Microsoft SDK




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